


Four Meetings

by smjit



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 15:07:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1783414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smjit/pseuds/smjit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life Barbara Gordon could have had if she hadn't been had such a strong penchant for justice... Why does she have such a bond with this stranger?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> This is purposefully vague. It is meant to be Babs and Dick and the cliched soul mate theme, but you could interpret it with other characters too if you like :)

The first time they met it was raining and she was strapped to a chair in an abandoned warehouse. She could remember two figures smashing a window and, while the larger incapacitated her attackers, the smaller, colourful one approached and untied her. His unsmiling eyes held pity, and anger, and vague recognition. He was shorter than she was, and when he tried to pick her up she almost stopped him but he managed anyway, carrying her fireman style to his boss, who attempted to relieve the boy who was surely only a few years younger than her. He held on with a kind of possessiveness that showed he didn't enjoy giving things up. She almost thought she'd been re-kidnapped but they took her home before her parents even noticed her gone, riding piggyback under the tiny boy's yellow cape.  
'Our little secret' he'd said before the darker one motioned him away with a curt nod.  
***  
The second time they met it was a perfect early winter day and she was watching the ice skating in the park. She was too awkward in her new-found gangliness to join in, although the rest of her family was on the ice, and she had a great view when it cracked and plunged everyone she loved to certain doom. He had grown too, and the two worked much better as a duo than they had all those years ago. She recognized them, even without their costumes. They managed to rescue everyone but an old woman for whom the cold had triggered a heart attack, and although the darker one struggled for what seemed like forever she was still unbreathing when the ambulance arrived. He'd turned as they carted her away, and seemed to seek her out on the hill where she sat in her too-small tweed coat that she loved too much to relinquish, even if it meant the gap between where her gloves ended and her sleeves began stayed freezing. He'd seemed.... pensive. As if she was a puzzle he couldn't solve and kept being reminded of. She wouldn't have counted it a meeting if it had been left at that, but she'd stood up almost unconsciously and slid on the icy path, hurtling down the hill at an alarming rate, too quickly for words, too quickly for breathing, but he'd caught her somehow, vulnerably unmasked face seemingly impassive but eyes suddenly showing... What, exactly. Recognition? No, he knew who she was, she was sure of it. Pity? She hadn't been related to the woman on the ice and her face showed it. Confusion? Maybe a touch, a pinching around the eyebrows that most wouldn't notice. He'd set her down then, warily, as if afraid of her, of what she stood for. What did she stand for? Almost subconsciously she'd noted that even three years later she was still taller than him. That night she'd gone home, quiet amongst the jubilant tones of the survivor family, and looked at herself in the mirror. What had he seen? Flame red hair accentuating flushed cheeks and nose, chapped lips and cold-watery eyes.  
***  
The third time they met the sun was nearly down and she'd just hung out her washing, a futile hope that it would dry overnight. Those hopes were fully crushed when a man of decent size flew over the fence and into her favourite floral sheets, staining them rust and ochre with his body. He had appeared over the wall, just his head, and watched her watching him. His hair was longer, and he hadn't shaved in a day or two, and the tiredness in his eyes checked the vicious rage she felt. In unison they looked at the man he'd presumably thrown over the fence into her clean washing. He disappeared a moment, then reappeared in a dimly colourful blur by her front gate, appearing almost sheepish as he rapped it with his knuckles, a belated request for entry. She numbly opened it, unhooking the complicated latch and pull system, knowing full well he could jump over it easier than she could unlock it. He travelled silently into the backyard, her trailing mutely. This time she recognized him, the man on the ground, as a well-known crook from a year or so back. The police said he'd momentarily escaped their notice. She of all people knew what that meant. Wordlessly her guest trussed the man up securely with various attachments from his belt, then carefully unpegged her ruined bed-linen and tucked it into his bag. She let him do it, confusion playing a part in her paralysis, though when he moved to leave she felt the urge to do something, anything, but by then he was gone and she was standing alone in the backyard of her first flat, damp socks in her hands and accusations in her lips. Her sheets were back by morning, folded crisply and scrupulously clean. There wasn't a note to justify their appearance, and despite all the eccentricities of the night prior her dominant thought was that they were finally the same height.  
***  
The last time they met she was in the process of falling, and although she hadn't planned to go near that shop that day her friend had begged a favour, and thus she was caught in the action. Dopily, arms pin-wheeling through space, brilliant hair streaming in front of her face so she could barely see and her friend's package spilling from her gravity-weakened fingers she watched herself fall, wondering in a moment of perfect clarity about the length of the drop before she was captured, encompassed, encapsulated in the warm arms of him. He wasn't colourful anymore, and she regretted that, but he was saving her again and who was she to complain? Below the idiot who freed her from the confines of the window was led away and she felt herself change direction to one of the lower windows. They stopped on the widest sill, chosen for its solidity and expansiveness and for a second he held her, heart beat barely raised above minimum until she pressed her ear to his chest. When she looked up he was frowning, painfully, and his jaw was clenched emphatically. She moved, running her hands down his torso until she found the gap that said so much in its absence. A groan escaped his teeth just as tears escaped her eyes when she found it, and she knew there was no way she could carry him. He was finally taller than her, a giant in her fear-weakened state, but all that meant was that his weight was now too much. Or was it? He had carried her, all those years ago, and she was strong. When she finally did manage to maneuver him inside he clutched her sleeve, tearing it a little when she reached for the phone. She looked at him until he pushed a catch on his waist and relaxed, and she realised she hadn't been holding him up at all only when they reached on the ground. His hair had been trimmed by a pedant, and she smoothed it carefully, unconsciously imitating a gesture as old as time itself. He showed his teeth, partially in pain and partially in happiness, she thought. His face was close, and in it she could see peace with the torment, and she realised it was her, had been her all along, so when they kissed it was almost nothing special, even though it really was. It confirmed them, and when her eyes opened she found his full of tears and a realization that she soon came to understand. He had saved her too many times now, and it was time for her to step back. When the bigger man arrived he found them sitting apart, but he recognized her all the same, and showed no emotion for what he knew had occurred, and took the not-a-boy-anymore away. She kept out of trouble from then on, though she sometimes caught a glimpse of forgotten colour out of her eye, which reminded of a pair of floral sheets, carefully folded. Or a kidnapping, quickly foiled. Or a mass death, narrowly evaded. Or a young devotion, genuinely defended until the end.


End file.
